Why I went: Adventure was a major driver. I was excited
to get away from the United States for a while and see what life
was like somewhere else.

New friends, new cultures: Once I was there, I was in an
apartment complex with students from all over the world. We had
Americans and Germans, and then just across the way there were
students from Finland, South Africa, Israel and Asia.

I had the chance to bond with people of all these different
nationalities. The experience opened my eyes.

A growing interest in Asia: I got to know some Malaysians
and Chinese. Asia at the time was a big mystery to me. My grandma
still pictures China during the Mao Zedong era, and I had no
personal experience to balance that.

Meeting people who lived there helped me understand that we had
a lot in common, and that there were opportunities there. It made
me pay attention to Asia in the following years.

Moving to China: After college, I worked for AmeriCorps
in Minnesota. I was taking business classes on the side, and some
of my professors did work in Asia. At the same time, China was
always popping up in the news, and I would read about it because I
knew people there.

My wife and I began looking into how we could go to Asia and
found that teaching English would be the easiest way.

We lived in Qingdao, China for two years. We ate everything the
Chinese did. We learned the language and just really immersed
ourselves in the experience. I worked for a Chinese biotech
company, doing their online advertising. The knowledge of Chinese
culture and business is something I’ll always carry with me
and hope to use even more in the future.

What I’m doing now: M&T’s Executive
Associate (EA) Program is a management development program where
they train you to understand all areas of the bank. I work in the
Marketing Analytics Department.

I definitely think my international experience helped set me
apart from other EA candidates. They look at EAs as change agents,
so they’re looking for somebody who has a diversity of
experiences, who can approach problems with a fresh thought
process.

Study Abroad

UB offers study abroad opportunities in 30 countries, along with
access to more than 550 other SUNY programs. Eleven percent of our
undergraduates study abroad — five times the national
average.

Find out more about how you can study abroad, whether
you’re an architect who would like to spend the summer in the
parks, cafés and museums of Barcelona, or an engineer who
would like to experience university life in France.